The Mystery of "I AM"

“Then Daniel responded with tact and discretion to Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon.

Then Daniel went to his house and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah about the matter, urging them to ask the God of heaven for mercy concerning this mystery, 

so Daniel and his friends would not be killed with the rest of Babylon’s wise men. 

(Daniel's action to seek God is not a righteous one!  It's a selfish one.  An action brought on by desperate preservation of one's life, in other words a great disaster.  Who do you think had the King of Babylon decide to decree such a disaster?  The same person who gave the King his dream in the first place...God!!!) 

The mystery was then revealed to Daniel in a vision at night, and Daniel praised the God of heaven and declared: 

May the name of God be praised forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. 

He changes the times and seasons; 

He removes kings and establishes kings. 

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. 

He reveals the deep and hidden things; 

He knows what is in the darkness, 

and light dwells with Him. 

I offer thanks and praise to You, 

God of my fathers, because You have given me wisdom and power. And now You have let me know what we asked of You, for You have let us know the king’s mystery."

Daniel 2:14, 17-23

What was God doing here?  Was God saving Daniel and his friends from being killed when God was the one who gave the King that dream in the first place knowing it would disturb him and make him issue everyone's death?  Clearly not.  If God wanted to save Daniel from death God would never have placed the dream in the King's mind.  So what was God doing? 

I think God had Daniel in His heart to know Him. So He placed the dream inside the King in order for disaster to force Daniel into calling upon Him for help, SO THAT God could walk Daniel through the experience of knowing Him as God.  Daniel praises God not for saving their lives, but for giving him the wisdom of experiencing God as being God.  The whole of every life will find its security and highest meaning of existence in this one thing:  that they know God and are loved by Him.  

God takes us through every detail of our day to speak this truth into our hearts.  He especially uses our discomforts and disasters to do this, because it is in those situations that we feeble humans will call for help in the last resort of our desperation.  However, as you accumulate such experiences the hope is to know God, so that whether in disaster or in peace we confidently praise God for being God.  It may take several disasters for someone to get this, but eventually once you do get it, that God is real, that God is good, and that YES God does love you, that's when heaven happens on earth.

Worry is distrust in God's sovereignty and love.  Worry spits on the cross that Jesus carried because it's saying "Jesus you died but that doesn't do much for me, I still need this or that!" Really?  You need more than Jesus?  You need money to pay rent? You need clothes to be warm?  You need food to feed your children?  You need energy and health to do fun or dutiful things?  Worry is doubting that God knows you need these things.  Worry is wanting to think God doesn't care about your needs and utmost wellbeing.  Worry is thinking that God doesn't love you, no matter what you believe about Jesus dying on a cross.  Worry is the wall between you and the grand epic life that God designed for you to have as His heir to His kingdom.  It's offensive how much we hate God, but hallelujah God loves us first and by His grace and mercy and love we are transformed and convinced day by day of how great His love really is.  But it starts with being honest.  If you worry you are thinking God is not good.  

"No, I worry but I trust God...it's just hard." 

Sigh.  It makes me shudder when I hear people say that.  It's so self-justifying.  Why can't we just be honest.   If you worry that means you don't trust God.  And it's hard because of many other reasons that reveal your weaknesses and insecurities.  So that's that.  Be honest. And to be honest I shudder most when I catch myself saying that. 

God said that the truth will set you free.  Believe that what God says will always come to pass.  What you say will not come to pass unless God said it first. 

I remember when I began to let go of worrying, it freaked me out.  It felt so weird and uncomfortable.  I wanted to worry.  I hated worrying and how it kept me up at times in the night when I needed rest, but more strange was how I missed the familiarity of it when I began to stop.  It felt ....offensive to not worry, weak and disabling, but most of all it felt uncomfortable because it meant that I was believing that God did love me.  It meant not knowing a lot.  Things became unpredictable and felt very unstable and insecure....my distraction (which was worrying) was now lifted and the truth was scary.  

Love is odd if you've never truly experienced it before.  It's so contrary to everything else you've ever known and experienced in so much  that you question and critique it the moment it starts to penetrate your defenses.  

If love freaks you out like it did for me, and like it continues to do for me, know that it is better to be freaked out by love than to be freaked out by death.  The truth is that both love and death are scary, but the feeling is not the truth, it's just what we think in a given moment (of experiencing the seeming threat of love or the seeming threat of death).  The truth is that one leads to Life and the other to Death.  

God is in the details of your honesty.  Don't be afraid to let the truth be exposed that leads to love.  It would be dumb of us to reject love because it "scared us." But many people do.  They hold on to fear and worry and doubt because that is easier than looking at the truth.  

Honestly, love scares me.  But I would rather remain scared for love than scared to die.  Haha.  

If I had to choose.  Which I do.  Oblivion is also a wall to block out the truth.  And then God will do something, reveal the hidden things that once scared you, and like Daniel you will praise God for being God.  You will know God and what it means to be loved by Him.  What it means to have no fear.  What it means to be the heir to everything as a royal son or daughter.  You will know your value and worth as such.  You will know your identity.  

That is what God speaks to each of His children in the details of every moment...right now.

He says, "I AM."

(Exodus 3:14)

I urge you, as Daniel did to his friends in the midst of disaster, to wake up and go to God for the answer to the mystery in your heart regarding I AM.

Jmegrey 

Honest people get the most love

The core fears I have are about circumstances.  

I have no control over my circumstances though!  

It's just like the rocks that hit my front windshield on the freeway that cost me $50 to replace through my insurance and time and inconvenience to my parents.  Yet above all those bothersome things about the circumstance stands my disdain for being a nuisance by accident.  I hate that I had no control over what had happened!  I didn't even see the rocks coming until they did.  I wasn't able to stop them.  I wasn't able.  

And not once did I stop to think about the able-ness of God to stop them, and why He may have not stopped them out of love for me.  

Because all I see is that rocks that cracked my window-- which had me waste time calling my insurance and repair technicians, time and money and inconveniences to others-- are all JUST BAD.  Why? Because I said so.  And I control what's bad and good in my life, not God.  Meanwhile I have no problem curtailing all the other areas in my life where I may have wasted time, money or been an inconvenience to my parents, and I either ignore those times or just bundle them all into a big fat self-disdaining drawer.  I'm either too good in my view or too bad.  However, I'm learning more to be both and to give both parts of myself in submission to God.  My good attributes as well as my bad ones.  Both need to be dependent on God--the good ones for continuing goodness, and the bad ones for healing and transformation.  The moment I am not in submission to Christ is the moment I fall into sin and all that sin reaps (greed, anger, bitterness, hatred, self-pity, lack of self-control, etc).

So, in this specific train of thought, my fear of circumstances are what drive my behaviors toward sin..trying to become able.  I often find that I naturally lean toward those abilities I have had success in, and steer clear of the ones I have not.  If I have had success in being beautiful or found intellectual then I will uphold those things most, while a lack of success in relationships, commitment or self control I will not attempt as much.  I am constantly trying to be able UNTIL I realize the truth that God is the only One who is able.  

Rather than submitting to the able-ness of God and accepting that He loves me through every self-perceived "bad" circumstance, I perceive good and bad based on my standard of able-ness: me.  

It's much easier to be hard on myself and hate myself than to look at God and think "wow, I'm so loved by You."

Or it's much easier to justify my anger and affirm my own feelings by my self and think, "it's not my fault, so don't get mad at me, I'm innocent."  All the while my soul cannot deny the feelings of defensive disdain at anyone who might try and make me feel guilty.  

When a whole dependency on God for one's able-ness is not accepted, then every effort one makes to become able breeds a lack of love for others--especially when they are unable to meet the standards you place on yourself-- and a lack of love for the self that is in Christ since you are really trying to be "able" apart from Him.  

So how can we live wholly dependent on God for our abilities, our able-ness?

Through humility as the truth of our weaknesses and sinful natures are unearthed beneath the layers of lies and phony cover ups we try to present to people.  

We live dependent on God when we live in the truth.  

The truth when speaking to people, the truth when speaking to God, and the truth when speaking to ourselves.

Recognize your human limits by the amount of love you have for others and for God and for your self that is in Christ.  The heart is deceitful above all things, but it is also where your treasure is.  There are lies and there are truths in there!  There are sins in there and there is the Holy Spirit in there.  

Knowing that I am good is harder to me than knowing that I am a sinner sometimes.  And at other times, knowing that I am a forgiven sinner is more difficult (especially when it requires forgiving an offensive person) than knowing that I am good or justified in my responses.  

Whatever happens today, be honest, and take time to submit your honesty as well as your phony cover ups to God.  Not to be right, but to be loved by God.  Sometimes knowing I was wrong brings me more love from God than doing what I knew to be right.  But other times doing what I felt God wanted me to do brings more love than falling into the temptation to sin.  So rather than trying hard to be right and trying hard to not be wrong, I must try and believe that God loves me, all of me.  

In every circumstance.  

"So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." -John 8:36

What's more free than that?  Haha.  Freedom is liberty from punishment and enjoyment of life as one who is supremely loved unconditionally.  Then, and only then, can I be a vessel of love for others by God.  Only if I know with increasing certainty that both failure to be loving and success in being loving is indeed loving--not by my ability but because God is able.  I just run to the truth.  

"and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." -John 8:32

The truth is...

To be honest I think....

 

Honestly I feel like....

Jmegrey 

This is not a family!!

"You violate your integrity when what you believe is no longer what you live. You ignore values that you hold dearly." -Geri Scazzero ("I Quit!")

"be able to live honestly and authentically."

"the degree to which we live in truth is the degree to which we are free."

"This is not a family!"

 I wanted to shout.  I wanted to say the words the burned in my heart late at night or when I read all the books and heard the biblical theologies.  All this knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, but God kept using my tears to remind me that all the books and sermons and teachings, prayers, biblical passages and mentors in the world would not change me.  Not more serving, not more praying or reading the bible, not more fellowship, not more solitude or reflection, none of that would change me.  None of that would give me Jesus.  None of that would heal my heart.  Those were all tools given to me, but without the thing itself I was just doing, thinking, holding ideals, and tinkering uselessly if nothing was being built.  If my heart was not full of God.  

“God, how difficult Your thoughts are for me to comprehend; how vast their sum is!”

Psalms 139:17

I have these tears that come so quickly.  They rush out the moment truth sets in.  They offend my defenses and trample down my ignorance, because they speak the truth.  And the truth is painful.  The truth is miserable.  It's heavy and bad, it's the sin in me, the sin in the world around me, and it's the sin that dishonors the God I claim to believe is all I want or need.  It does not make sense!  

I present myself to God as utterly helpless.  Without Jesus I am hopeless.  

Only the grace of God could lift this curse from me. 

But where was I?  Oh yes.  My shouting.  "This is not a family!"  I am angry at the way we treat one another in this fake pretense to appear fine.  You and I are not fine.  We piss each other off and we hurt each other everyday, but we keep our mouths shut and pretend we are okay.  Is that love?  Or is that lying.  You might think, well sometimes lying is love, because if we really say what's on our mind it could be received badly.  We don't lie because we love, we lie because we are afraid of what the truth will reveal or change!  It might change a relationship, approval, respect, or it might reveal our true selfs to others, the ugly self that we hate and try to cover and hide from people because we fear that if they saw what we saw they'd disdain us the way we disdain ourselves when we see our true selves.  We fear fighting because it's uncomfortable and inconvenient, or God forbid it might require us to ask for forgiveness!  We are scared of being wrong.  

To be quiet is not love.  To lie by being quiet in order to keep the peace is not love.   The bible does not say that.  That is your own thinking, not God's.  Paul never lied to keep people happy or "keep the peace", he confronted Peter when he saw Peter not walking in the truth of the gospel.  If you're mad and you hold it in, you don't show what's really inside, you are lying.  I am lying.  

It takes effort and a lot of thinking to be able to tell the truth in love.  It does not take silence and self resolution, it's not a "me and God work this out" because your problem is not with God it's with another person.  The problem between you and God is only resolved in Jesus!  Now it's you and your fellow neighbor.  It's you and that person.  That person!  For every person you keep quiet about the truth... you are lying.  It took me 3 hours to say what I wanted to say when my friend made me angry.  I had to show her my anger because that was the truth, but I also had to do it in love, and it took me 3 hours to ask God desperately where love could be found in my anger.  How could I look at this person who just tried to devalue me and in return give her value?  Only by the power of God!  That's how.  We speak the truth in love because God said to, and in His Sovereignty He will decide when conflicts resolve or when we need some more problems to help us grow.  Because in His time He works out all things, every struggle and prolonged problem, for our good.  We submit to His law that says to forgive, to love, and to speak the truth in love....and if conflict or change ensues, and pain and hurt result, we use those bitter tears to be like children before God our Father.  We desperately need Him in every way. 

How many of us lie to the very people we claim to love? 

Speak the truth and do so in love.  But to remain quiet is not love, it is lying. 

How can we begin to practice speaking the truth in love? 

The same way we practice a new sport or mathematics or speaking a new language.  We just do it and mess up and keep doing it until it is perfected.  

The hardest people it will be to practice speaking the truth in love are those we claim to love most, our parents, our siblings, our best friends, our children, our spouses, but most of all our selves.  

It literally takes your whole life to love someone, it's not "keeping the peace" or pretenses, but love is the truth.  Can we tell that person the truth, what we are really thinking?  "This is not a family" this is pretense and I'm pissed off because I don't feel loved.  So tell me how this is love, explain it to me, show it to me, and then I can ask for forgiveness, but not until I get real love.  I must trust God for real love.  

“No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:13

Taste real love.  Speak the truth.  People will reject you, belittle you, disrespect you, hate you, and misunderstand you.  That's not because of them, but it is for our own practice to be humbled by the fact that we are learning to walk in love.  This is a difficult thing to do, and it's the reason I cry every night, but it is the ONLY way that the world will know we are God's own people.  Real love.  I want real love. 

I am confronted by how much I do not speak the truth of what I have in my heart because I'm scared that people will not like it.  Because they wouldn't!  I don't like it!  So why walk toward such a risky and terrible outcome?  The system might change, the relationship might go bad, things could change in a bad way!  Why speak the truth of who I am with those risks involves?  It's crazy.  Change is unpredictable.  

Also I have a record of being wrong, making speaking up even more undesirable.  

But, this is not a family, because this is not love.  And if this is not a family, and it is not love, then this--this whatever I'm doing: praying, learning, reading books, listening to sermons, worshipping, reading the bible, teaching, fellowship-ing, crying, journaling, blogging-- all of this is not God.  

God is love.  Love is only received in truth. 

This is not a family and that's the truth!  Love never fails, but this ...this is failing.  Let the messy practice begin.  For the joy set before me of true love.  I have no clue what will happen or when or how.  But all I know is that I must have love. 

I must have the real God.

Jmegrey

Today you have one mission to do

“On the day you stood aloof, on the day strangers captured his wealth, while foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them (like the foreigners who were doing harm to Your brother)"

-On the the people of Esau and their disaster for how they stood by and watched their brother fall.

"Saviors will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the hill country of Esau, but the kingdom will be the Lord’s.”

-On Jacob's restoration being about God not Jacob.

Obadiah 1:11, 21

You know, the day begins and soon enough one thing after another is like a threat to my peace and awareness of God with me.  

As Isaiah 41:10 says,

'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'

If I don't have the Word to remind me of the truth then whatever happens to threaten me will succeed in threatening me because my body and emotions are wired to react based on my thoughts.  If my mind thinks "that's not good" then my whole body and emotions will take up that same cue and react to whatever just happened as "that's not good."  

If my mind thinks "that's not good," then that is the moment I take up my question before God who has the right to correct me and my thoughts with His ways and thoughts that are higher than mine.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways." This is the LORD's declaration." -Isaiah 55:8

However, this is usually the last thing I do unless I am hyper aware of my purpose for the day.  Each day I have a mission to complete.  Not for the week, not for the month, not for a year, and not even for my life, but each single day.  One mission at a time needs to be done.  

"So don't worry about tomorrow, 

for tomorrow will bring its own worries. 

Today's trouble is enough for today." 

-Matthew 6:34

That mission is to do the will of God.  The will of God is to bring everything to Him for all things to be perfectly working.  All created things are in existence by the Creator for the Creator, and when all things point to the beauty of God that is when they are perfect.  The mission each day is to be used by God in redeeming the broken things to wholeness.  I am His servant and agent in getting His will done.  This means that I pull from the resources of God, His money, His time, His food, His cars, His homes, His other people, His buildings, His clothes, all of what I once foolishly thought of as mine are in truth all His belongings that I am given for the day's mission. Never a single thing too short or too much, but I have what I have today: physically, materially, financially, spiritually, food-wise, time-wise, schedule-wise, and emotionally all in perfect supply from God to get the day's mission done.  

“Give us today our daily bread.”

Matthew 6:11

The prayer is just to remember that down to the last bite, it was given and not mindlessly taken.  

Given for God's will to be done. 

So when the day continues and threats to my submission to this mission occur, I might feel unsuited for the task because of anger or bitterness, boredom or confusion, frustration or hurt, but those thoughts in my mind are my own.  The moment the mission is aborted is the moment I bring my thoughts to God and ask, what are Your thoughts?  

God usually corrects my false fantasy of thinking that I need to start planning out the week, the month, the future, and reminds me that I have a mission to complete today.  That is all.  When today is done, then my goal of using all that God gave me is also perfectly wrapped up and settled.  What God wanted is done for the day, and I rest because if God says it's done then what more could I do for God?  Nothing.  So I rest.  And the next I take on whatever God has in His infinite and unstoppable plan for restoration.

I'm pretty much in the business of saving the world.  

This morning as I turned the (electronic) pages of my bible app, I found myself reading Obadiah.  

“On the day you stood aloof, on the day strangers captured his wealth, while foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them (like the foreigners who were doing harm to Your brother)"

-On the the people of Esau and their disaster for how they stood by and watched their brother fall.

"Saviors will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the hill country of Esau, but the kingdom will be the Lord’s.”

-On Jacob's restoration being about God not Jacob.

Obadiah 1:11, 21

The prophet Obadiah was declaring Esau's coming doom for having stood "aloof" as invaders plundered and killed the people of Jacob, the children of his twin brother.  You know who wouldn't have just stood there while God's blessed son was being attacked?  

Another son.  If my brother was being attacked by bees, I wouldn't just stand there and watch as he got stung or started to bleed.  I would grab whatever I could and start swatting them away from him and trying to help and protect him from getting hurt, why? Because I'm his sister and no one hurts my family without also hurting me!  

In the same way, when the children of Esau stood by as their own family was being attacked, God is saying that they were basically acting just as the attackers themselves!  By not doing anything they became the enemy.  This is what we usually refer to as the sin of omission.  They saw their brother, but didn't act like a brother would.  They did not have love in their hearts as God has ordered for brothers and sisters to have for one another, and without love they no longer acted in the right design of a brother.  They became the opposite of a brother, and joined the ranks of the foreigners who opposed Jacob. 

They became the enemy. 

Even though they only "stood aloof" and really did nothing, their act of passivity was an offense to the order of God who designed for family to love one another. 

When their goal was not to do the will of God, meaning to bring all disorder into perfect order, they automatically did whatever they willed for what they thought was right.  Humans have an opinion for what they think is right, but God alone has the absolute truth for what is right...since He made it.  

If God is the captain, the King, and the Creator then we take orders from Him and experience being caught up in His wisdom on display.  

Then, so as not to get anyone confused with that of God's highest supremacy, the prophet Obadiah says that even after some people (the so-called "righteous saviors" or right minded saving-my-brother-because-I-love-him people) do fight to help their brother, they are merely doing what is first and foremost the edict of God.  The King declares brotherly love, and that is why they do what they do when their brother is in trouble.  They do not love because they think loving is right or because they are kind people, but they only love because their mission is to do what God says.  And they do what God says because they fight on the side of the Kingdom of God.  In God's kingdom it is God who has the last say in what we are to do.  

So whether one is an Esau person or a Jacob person really makes no difference.  It is whether one is a God person.  

This truth hit me because the morning had not even been that eventful, yet already I found myself having to take a knee before the King and consult Him about a matter for today.  

Today we are sent by God with enough resources given by God to do what He has planned for us to do.  And at the end of the day we can close our eyes and settle down into our beds knowing that all is done for today, for the King's will cannot be deterred (not by the enemy, not even by us!) not even for a second.  We save the world because He saves the world, we live each day as He sees fit for the Kingdom that belongs to Him.  

Take a knee with me today,

Our Father in heaven, 

Your name be honored as holy. 

Your kingdom come. 

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. 

And forgive us our debts, 

as we also have forgiven our debtors. 

And do not bring us into temptation, 

but deliver us from the evil one. 

For Yours is the kingdom 

and the power and the glory forever. 

Amen.

Matthew 6:9-13

Royally sent,

Your sister and fellow heir of the Kingdom of God our Father.

Jmegrey

Conversation with God

Lord...

Hmm?

Nothing.

Okay.

Lord?

Hmm? 

Never mind.

Okay.

Lord?

Hmm?

Mm...I forget.

Okay.

Lord?

Hmm? 

Hi.

Hello.

Lord?

Hmm?

I love You.

I love you too.

Keep me

Sometimes this hope in me feels so wrong.  It feels undeserved--like a lie.  God can't still love me after that, again and again, can He?  Yet, deep down it must be so because the first thing that rushes forth after I've fallen in my shame of disobedience or a lust of my desires is ....love.  I can't quite describe it, but when I feel a punch of guilt I'm met by an avalanche of love, if a wave of guilt then a tsunami of love.  

I feel flattened but I also feel loved.

I feel lost but loved.

I feel pain but loved.

I feel unsure, but then fully loved.

How could it be that strong?  How could love be that powerful in the midst of horrendous assaults to holiness?  Only by the blood of Jesus.

Because I'm creature and You the Creator

I stand still unknowing Your way,

I wait in the bitter fog, 

I listen in the dark for You to speak. 

In the cold my heart freezes over like brittle mud,

Dry and unwatered in madness and mess.

"Then I said, “Until when, Lord? ” 

And He replied: 

Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, 

houses are without people, 

the land is ruined and desolate, 

and the Lord drives the people far away, 

leaving great emptiness in the land.”

(Isaiah 6:11-12)

To be in bitter confusion until the end?  To waste away in the world and be consigned to end with absolute emptiness?  To watch for desolation, ruin and great emptiness in the land?

Because I AM Creator and you, Jamie, creature. 

I speak a better word, 

I speak the only word that stands for time now and time after all have died.

Do you know Me?

“Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, 

or who gave Him His counsel?

“Who will you compare Me to, 

or who is My equal? ” asks the Holy One.”

(Isaiah 40:13, 25)

None Lord.  

Only You can both break 

and make again the heart in me.  

You are above the fears that come at night,

Your hand wipes away every tear,

And Your voice stays with me in the emptiness.

You bring me understanding in a whisper,

And You give me hope as in a jar of light,

And stars cannot shine in comparison to it. 

You clothe me in robes of reward,

You crown me with a garland of heavenly blooms, and You say to me that I am Yours, and You are mine. 

Then Your presence lifts away from my senses and faith takes its place. No longer felt, heard or known, but believed.  Where do You go Lord?  Why do you exercise my faith, why not remain in my senses and be ignited by Your good Word?  Why force me to stand in faith, breathing faith, calling forth faith like a desperate attempt to keep from losing You altogether?  Why Lord?

“in order to open blind eyes, 

to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, 

and those sitting in darkness from the prison house.”

(Isaiah 42:7)

When Your presence lifts then the fog and darkness surround me.  I am in a prison, and I am blind.  I sit in darkness in the cell of my dungeon.  This place is unpleasant and frightening.  But faith is painfully called upon to rescue me.  Faith in what is unseen.  Faith in You even when I don't sense You near me.  It makes no sense until I grab the faith You supplied me with.  I grab this mysterious faith, and it burns in my grasp.  It feels like it causes me more pain than good at first, but the pain of faith wipes out the threat of darkness.  The pain of faith opens my blind eyes to a light as it burns.  As if You are burning away something.  That which is being burned is the very cell I long to be rescued from. Lord, You leave my senses to burn away my ignorance and depraved mind.  The cell I sit in must be dealt with by faith.  

But Lord, the pain of faith is too great!  The resistance in me is strong and I cannot grasp faith for very long before I let it go and it all comes crashing down again.  Where tears of bitter shame and sweet grace received mix together and I have little strength to speak. 

What then Lord? 

“I will be with you 

when you pass through the waters, 

and when you pass through the rivers, 

they will not overwhelm you. 

You will not be scorched 

when you walk through the fire, 

and the flame will not burn you.

Because you are precious in My sight 

and honored, 

and I love you, 

I will give people in exchange for you 

and nations instead of your life.

I, I am Yahweh, 

and there is no other Savior but Me.”

(Isaiah 43:2, 4, 11)

Yes, Lord.  There is no other Savior but You.  There is no other option, no plan B, no other hope.  When I fall You are there, when I rise in victory it is Your hand holding me, and when I am here or there- in the light or in the dark, You alone save me without fail.  

Teach me to be humble.  

To run to You for refuge, whether in shame or glory.  In pain or joy.  In sadness or strength.  In my worst condition and in my most faith-filled.  In depravation (somehow) and in mindfulness of Your Sovereignty.  And lead me in the everlasting way.  Search me and know me.  And then show me myself so that I can see with my eyes and be led by Your love.  Place the reward of faith never too far out of sight, but remind me never to question You when it is.  Keep me.  

Jmegrey

Grab hope!

"...so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, 

we who have fled for refuge 

might have strong encouragement to 

seize the hope set before us.”

Hebrews 6:17-18

We live as children of the promise.  

God says here that His promises are unchangeable.  We who flee for refuge ...

Who flees for refuge?  Hurricane victims.  Why because they feel they're in danger and they could die!  So they flee for refuge!  In a bomb shelter or behind a strong stone wall or maybe in just the next safe looking place they can desperately find!  Here's what they don't do: nothing.  If a hurricane happened right now, you would want your family and yourself to survive.  It's our human instinct to survive.  To live.  Because we were made to have Life.  

So this verse is for the children of the promise of God, that eternal life would be ours, that we would have Life.  And we flee to God for refuge when things look threatening, when our image is at stake, our money is running low, our addictions rage in us, we feel the anxiety the worry the doubt and the fear because it doesn't look good for us- it's like a hurricane and we will do something, either we will flee to God for refuge or away from Him (towards death).  

So what happens when we flee to God?  Does it mean we are perfect law keepers?  Does it mean we become morally perfect?  Do we become absolutely perfect and saintly?  No, it says we seize or grab the hope set before us!  Like a hurricane victim might grab onto a pole or a person to keep from losing it!  We grab onto hope not so much to be perfect but to keep from losing it!  We can lose hope, but we grab it when the threats happen and we seize it with everything we got!  Whether that's before, during, or after a fall into sin.  The hope that Jesus really did save us, He really does love us, and He really is a good God who has Life for us.  

Hope means...even though things look bad, I have this hope as an anchor for my soul that Jesus will carry me through to the end somehow.  When we believe in Jesus we believe that He is our hope.  This Jesus is the only One who can save morally corrupt people like you and me.  

By faith.  

How? I'm not good.  

By faith.

But....I sin and I like it.

By faith. 

But I keep sinning and I feel like I will never stop.

By faith.

I don't think I can change.

By faith. 

I'm not good, but Jesus has made me good when He wiped out my sins and gave me His life of perfect obedience to God.

I still find that my desire to sin is so great, but I know that God can change my desires, so what is God doing now as I continue to sin?  

If I never stop this sin I desire so much, what might God be showing me through it for all the times I go back to it?  

If I never change in this regard to sin, where is the actual change happening?

By faith we live to believe that Jesus finished it, and when the hurricanes hit us we fight the fight of faith by running to God for refuge not away from Him.

He promised His heirs Life, and nobody can break God's promise.  Nobody and no hurricane, nothing can separate us from God.  We are coheirs with Christ.  When the Hurricane hits, anger, addiction, greed, self-pity, pride, bitterness, depression, loneliness, or doubt/worry/ and fear....my brother and sister we must run as fast as we can toward God and seize hope with everything we have!  Seize it because we will lose it if we don't!  Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a fulfilled desire is a tree of life! (Proverbs 13:12).  Grab hope in God!  And your desires at the deepest level will be fulfilled, the desire for a perfect life, (not the perfect life from your little brain but the greater perfect life from God's brain, the desire that you don't know you have until you experience it and then are amazed at how awesome it is!).  Otherwise you will grab something else.  

Because God wanted to show His unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, 

He guaranteed it with an oath, 

so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.”

Hebrews 6:17-18

Run.  To God.  Grab that hope, and hang on.  

Fellow heir of God's promises,

Jmegrey 

Room to breathe

“He brought me out to a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me."

Psalm 18:19

Last night and this morning (including right now) I feel the thoughts in my head telling me that "I can't breathe."  Am I breathing?  Yes, of course, but the words are an expression of this inner tightness that makes breathing feel most necessary and less of a passive action.  Breathing is necessary for life, without breathing you will die.  So, in a sense it feels as if fear of death is around me.  Mental uneasiness, whether stress, anxiety, or worry are all brought out by a deep sense of one's fear of death.  Otherwise why feel uneasy if all will be well and life will be sustained?  And not just life, but a fulfilled and satisfied life?   Because that's not what I believe when I'm feeling this way.  "I cannot breathe" because I cannot believe that all will be well in this moment, and how can I when there are so many things troubling me? 

Then the psalmist reminds me that it is God who brings us to our shipwrecks and God who brings us into wide open spaces to breathe.  God brings us here or there out of His delight.  So either God is cruel for making me claustrophobic or He is loving by making me think this through to reach His delight.  Which will I put my faith and trust in?  

"God — His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is pure. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him."

Psalm 18:30

His way is perfect, and my way is, well, my way.  The way of Jamie.  You need not ask more than myself or a handful of my closest friends about "the way of Jamie" before you find out about my imperfections.  My way is based on immediate gratifications, temporary circumstances, and 28 years of living.  God's way is based on joy that will last for the life that outlives time, eternal circumstances, and infinity years of living.  Sigh.  My imperfections are showing already.  But the word of the Lord, or the written words in the bible, are pure.  Pure means they have no other intention or purpose but to be perfect.  They must be perfect in order to be a shield.  The shield I run to when the shipwreck happens, when I find myself thinking "I can't breathe."

So it is not the shipwreck or even the words of God that I am thinking about, but God Himself and His delight in me.  God the personal.  God my personal God.  I am at a shipwreck because I am in need of His delight in me, and I am in need of His delight in me because nothing in life satisfies my eternal soul besides an eternal love.  My good God uses my willingness to exploit the disguises of my troubles, which first appeared as family, beauty, and achievement issues, and gives me insight into their true calling which was to show me that I have all of those in fullest joy when God delights in me.  Suddenly I can breathe, and only because God delights in me.  

"God — He clothes me with strength and makes my way perfect.”

Psalms 18:32

To be clothed is most noticed when one has been naked and in bitter cold for a while.  If you change clothes regularly, it is not as noticeable.  However, if you stand in -26 degree cold icy winds that feel like jagged knives cutting at every inch of your face, neck, arms, hands, and legs then a sudden coat of warm wool will thaw you out and bring you to a better happy place.  The psalmist here, however, isn't talking about getting to a happy place--he is writing about getting to a perfect place.  So the analogy is that God is not only clothing you from the bitter cold, but He is transforming you while doing so in order that you be like Him and be above things like temperature.  This is about being like God who is perfect in all His ways and in His being.  We are led to the places of shipwreck only if it is leading us to the place of perfection--to God.  A shipwreck for the child of God is never just a shipwreck.  It always means transformation.  We are being transformed from glory to glory, or in other words from gaining more and more delight by God.  God is literally delighting in us more and more which means heaven is closer and closer.  Heaven is going to be all about how much we love to have God delight in us, period.  We love when people delight in us now, but how much more will we love the God who smoothed out and fashioned our faces together to look at us and beam with pleasure?  

“You widen a place beneath me for my steps, and my ankles do not give way.”

Psalms 18:36

I particularly liked this verse because I have weak ankles and they usually give way on unstable ground.  This is a dangerous fact, and it means I fall and trip easily which causes me a lot of pain and anxiety.  God widens my path, but more importantly it is God who has the power to command my ankles, the bones and ligaments, to fasten more tightly to my movements so that I do not fall.  In other words, God is able to keep me from falling if He wills, and I rest in that truth because it also reveals that if I do fall, if I break or can't breathe because of it, God will use that to mend me and take delight in my newfound renewal.  God keeps no record of wrong for those He loves.  God loves me, because I believe His word when He said so.  Not because I feel loved or even because I know that I am loved, both of which sometimes are absent or have recklessly abandoned me, but above all of that it is because I believe I am loved.  

“God — He gives me vengeance and subdues peoples under me.”

Psalms 18:47

What does it mean to be given vengeance by God as opposed to seeking revenge?

So someone hurts you badly, they just cut you up mentally, emotionally, or even physically in some way, and then instead of seeking revenge you have God give it to you.  How does He GIVE you vengeance as opposed to you grabbing at it with short arms always out of reach?  When someone hurts me I feel the pain of it and it sucks.  Anger, bitterness, resentment all leave little poop stains on my face and God sees that and says "allow Me" as He wipes them off of me.  

He knows what I go through when I am hurt by someone, and He allows people to hurt me to bring me more alert to the dirt on my face SO THAT He can lovingly wipe it off.  It's not that the hurt caused it, but that something deeper in me was already against God as being everything I needed and such an evil needed to be brought to my attention.  God gives me vengeance on the evil that caused me to resist life in the first place when someone He used brought it up to me.  Should I be mad at the vessel (the person) or the evil in me?  God frequently uses other people to show me the dirt in my heart in order to take deeper delight in me.  

What does it mean to be given subdued people's under oneself by God versus lording over people? 

The psalmist writes that God is the one who will subdue people under us.  I found this verse a bit strange at first because my false humility started flaring up and thinking "I don't want people under me," but really I love the idea of that, because who doesn't love being on top?  Maybe you don't, but according to this verse God considers it a good thing to have.  So the question lies in the difference between God doing the subduing and me doing the subduing. What does is mean to get it rather than to try and make it happen?  We live in a world that tells us we need to work for what we gain, but when you start to enter into dealings with God you soon find that you're not only way out of your league, but you don't even exist.  You are an inanimate object next to God.  What can an inanimate object do?  Nothing.  So it is strange, but God happens to love me, the inanimate object, and because He is God He breathes life into me and makes me do this or that for His pleasure while I simply reap the benefits of His breath in my lifeless self.  This is to be made or breathed into God's delight. I then exist to bring Him delight, and as such He places my value contingent upon His delight.  The further I am being made into His delight the higher my value goes, and at the rate of His delight I begin to see the delight of man as less and less desirable.  His delight in me subdues the delight I once needed from people, and by this He gives me rise over them.  

I can breathe a little more, now that the Word has brought me to a roomier place.

Jmegrey 

Invisible (part 8)

She turned around slowly and saw the Prince with another young man walking the grounds a few feet from where she stood.  They looked deep in topic about something, but all she could hear were incoherent words strung together and brandished by the Prince's unforgettable tone.  It was a low but charming sound and it sounded pleasant even in gibberish.  

In her head the Prince was everything anyone could desire.  He was altogether a picture of everything she thought a person could be.  He had the most beautiful face and the way he walked was just as handsome.  She found herself spending so much of her admiration on the Prince and felt the pangs of guilt, but before she could fully turn away they approached her suddenly.  

"Hello."  The Prince spoke to her.

"Hello."  She replied, a bit startled. 

She thought of him.  What would he say if he were here with her and the Prince at this very moment?  And she heard a faint whisper, too distant that she second guessed having actually heard it: find me everyday.  

"We noticed you didn't have an umbrella and its expected to rain soon.  Here." 

The Prince handed her a black umbrella by the J-shaped handle secured with the band tied around it and fastened with a small silver clasp.  

She reached out to take the offer, but midway realized her manners and pulled her hand back.

"Oh, thank you, but I'm okay.  I don't mind the rain."  She felt dumb for saying she didn't mind the rain, as if she were some water creature belittling the idea of her two acquaintances.  Inside she frowned at her rudeness.

"Please," the Prince insisted, "take it."  The Prince remained with his offer toward her.

His friend stood there, almost as handsome as the Prince, in a friendly quiet manner.  

"Thank you."  She acquiesced, and grabbed the the umbrella by the body to avoid awkwardly touching the royal Prince's hand.  She did need it.  She was carrying her laptop in her bag, but more than that she wanted to spend more time at the gravesite to clear her head, and getting wet would disrupt that.  He smiled at the maneuver, but his face changed as he said, "I know what it's like to lose a parent."

The Prince looked bothered, but his tone was empathetic.  She took this to mean she was clearly taking up more of the Prince's time than she should, but before she could thank the Prince and say ado he spoke again.

"What's your name?"  

The question surprised her.

She answered it and waited for what would happen next.  

There was a small second of awkward silence, but this time the Prince's friend chimed in.

"I'm Alex."  He reached to shake her hand.

It was a firm grip and she found herself blinking more than usual at how wildly unexpected this all was.  

"Alex is my coordinator who keeps me organized and on time."  The Prince and Alex looked like a friendly but professional pair. 

"It's nice to meet both of you," she stammered trying to sound confident.

"Thank you for the umbrella, I suppose it will be timely to have it when it starts pouring on my laptop."  Alex gave her a cheeky grin. 

"It was Alex's idea when we saw you from over there," the Prince said.  "Alex is hardly ever unprepared."

She felt the warmth in her cheeks and fumbled to find the right words.  Inside she felt singled out and special.  It was an odd feeling, unlike the way she had felt when she met him.  This was more like an instant rush whereas meeting her true love had felt very skeptical at first.  She quickly responded back, "I'm lucky to have been within sight then.  I am hardly ever prepared for anything."  She immediately felt a panic inside at her strange admittance.

The Prince and Alex both laughed, and relief washed over her.  They seemed to take a liking to her, and she had no idea what to make of this.  It felt good, but in a fleeting way.  She wanted to enjoy this random occurrence even if she would only walk away with a good story.  It felt harmless enough, but the whisper came back and she didn't know what was making her feel so uncomfortable about it. 

"Hey," the Prince began, again intercepting the whisper, "Alex and I have throughly enjoyed meeting you, but unfortunately we have to get going.  We are preparing a fundraiser at an art school next week."  She nodded, and realized the Prince was actually referring to her school.  

"Oh yeah, that's my school!" She blurted, again embarrassed by her lack of eloquence.  She quickly added, "I mean, we were told that our school would be visited by the Prince and asked to create something small to show in your honor."  She felt flushed again, thinking she was talking too much and being a bother.  

"You're kidding!"  The Prince looked enthusiastic.  "Alex, did you hear that?  She is an art student.  She'd be perfect!"  As soon as the words left the Prince's mouth she felt her heart beat faster. 

"Perfect for what?" She inquired nervously. 

"Well," the Prince motioned to his friend.

Alex tilted his head in curiosity and gave a boyish grin.  "You're right Prince, she does appear to be just what you were looking for."

She was now forgetting how to breathe and realized she was holding her breath as she waited for one of them to acknowledge her question.  

The Prince looked at her with a mischievous half grin polished by his handsome confidence, "Alex was just telling me that I will need an escort for the engagement at your art school for better photos, since me on my own can look a little sad.  I was trying to convince him otherwise, but since you're an actual student it would help boost the campaign's goal to get more creatives on board."

They both looked at her with expectant faces, and she was trying to process what was happening. 

"You want me to be your escort to your honorary visit to my school?"  She managed to say as poised as she could.  

"The visitation is about the cause, and I would be the one honored if you would be my escort.  I want for more bright students like yourself, to venture into what they can do for the world, for themselves.  What do you say?"

The offer was held out toward her in the same manner that the umbrella had been.  And just then it began to rain.  

The three of them stood there with heightened urgency to keep dry, and she bent down with fumbling hands to open the umbrella that belonged to the Prince. 

She finally unlatched the clasp and almost automatically the sleek black sleeves gently bloomed open into a circular covering.  She saw Alex do the same with one he was holding and hold it above him and the Prince's half dampened locks.  

She took in a breath of hesitation, but it was all happening so fast.  "Okay," she said louder than usual to speak over the rain as it began to pour harder.  "I mean, I don't know what I would wear, but, I mean, I know the grounds well," she added finding it difficult to resist the Prince at such close proximity.  

"Great!" Alex said, "don't worry about what to wear we will have it arranged for you and everything will be set," Alex gave her quick reassuring wink.  

"I look forward to it," the Prince said with a solid nod, "now excuse me to go fetch the car."  With that the Prince escaped from under the umbrella and hurried toward the end of the lawn toward the parking lot.

"He always does that," said Alex.  "He forgets that I'm supposed to fetch the car, but only when it's about maintaining the campaign."  

The rain continued to pour as Alex and she exchanged contact information.  When that was settled Alex walked her to her car and reached out to shake her hand before she got in.  The Prince was waiting in the car behind them as it rained heavily, and she firmly shook Alex's hand as she looked at the Prince in the distance of about 15 feet.  

The drive home was completely dazed, and she drove on auto pilot, turning left and right toward her house.  

When she got home she realized she still had the Prince's umbrella, which made her feel more compelled that she would have to follow through to being his escort.   

She turned the car off and listened to the rain hit her car in a chorus of knocks.  She suddenly felt tears well up in her eyes because it occurred to her that she had just agreed to escort the rival of her invisible love.  

She waited.  There was no whisper, only the muffled sound of rain.  And the tears turned into sobs until she was too tired to continue.  

That night she crawled into bed without much to keep her awake, and quickly fell into sleep.  

The next morning she awoke to a soft glow in her room, it was a Sunday.  She rubbed a bit of hardened sleep from her eyes and felt the swollen softness of her eyelids.  She lay in bed for another hour trying not to think of what had happened.  It all seemed so overwhelming for her.  A mixture of excitement and guilt, the way it felt to eat a slice of her favorite decadent cheesecake at the corner cafe, except this time the enjoyment seemed harder to reach. 

But she would try.  She wanted the excitement because the guilt felt unbearable.  She wanted to be happy in order to cope with the pain, and things were beginning to look possible.  

Perhaps the Prince's campaign is for liberty too, she mused inwardly.  But somewhere deep inside she knew it wasn't, it couldn't be, because he went invisible to prove it to her.  

Everything felt too steep for her.  She got out of bed and made herself coffee.  After a wrestle with fear, she resolved to search for a kinsmen for help.  She would find him today, somehow because she had to. 

Dear Pastor Tullian

“There is no fear in love; 

instead, 

perfect love drives out fear, 

because fear involves punishment. 

So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love.”

1 John 4:18 

I found out today that one of my favorite preachers, and by favorite I mean one that God used to help weather me through many moments of darkness and essentially led me to where I am today, had recently admitted to cheating on his wife.  Some details regarding the matter are that his wife was first found cheating on him and continued to do so, which obviously affected him as a pastor and as a person, and he evidently reached out for people to meet the need that his wife was meant to meet and ended up having an affair himself.  Was his decision to put himself in temptations way by opening up to another woman at this vulnerable time wrong?  Yes, wisdom would say so.  Is he wrong for having an affair even though his wife had one first and did not stop?  Yes, he is wrong.  She is wrong.  They're both EQUALLY wrong.  No one is more responsible for the others' actions than another.  Each acted and caused one another to do what was morally wrong and hurtful.  What is the biblical response then as brothers and sisters of one Father to be?  

I have personally never met pastor Tullian, but he responded to a comment I made on his blog once about how I liked the movie "the Giver."  Besides that, I have never seen, spoken to, or known pastor Tullian personally, but the way God used him in my life is evident to me.  And I'm sure he has helped so many other people who struggled with drinking from the fountain of grace.  Grace and love were fed to me by pastor Tullian (among others), because I am depraved in my head and God used him to show me that.  So now, what am I to expect when he, too, finds that depravation in his mind in this way?  I want to give him the same gift of grace and love that he fed me, because that is the definition of grace and love.  There are not only no conditions, meaning even if his wife never first cheated on him it wouldn't matter, but also that all the more after this incident I love him as my own kin.  

So, if anyone here has been impacted by pastor Tullian in a way that has brought them closer to that sweet unrelenting river of grace and love as I have been, then make no mistake that what has happened here was all a part of God's sovereign plan for higher purposes that we are called to believe in faith.  How do we believe?  By trusting that God is good, and He is concerned about his children, so he lets things happen for THEIR GOOD.  I'm not saying having an affair is good, but that the affair happened and so long as both Pastor Tullian and Kim hold strongly to their faith that they are God's children, and not condemned for their sin-actions, then what happened was meant for their good.  They fight the fight of faith as all of us do.  

“There is no fear in love; 

instead, perfect love drives out fear, 

because fear involves punishment. 

So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love.”

1 John 4:18

May God continue to shape both Pastor Tullian and Kim to be drinkers of His unconditional love and His unfathomable grace.  

There is no punishment for their sins, because Christ knew it would happen, loved them, and owned it as his burden when he went to the cross and forever satisfied all justice in Himself.  There is no punishment because there is no sin for the one who believes in Jesus.  

“Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,”

Romans 8:1

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, 

if any consolation of love, 

if any fellowship with the Spirit, 

if any affection and mercy, 

fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, 

having the same love, 

sharing the same feelings, 

focusing on one goal.”

Philippians 2:1-2

My goal is to lift the name of Jesus above everything and make God most beautiful to the eyes of all who will drink from the fountain of grace and love.  He is worthy to be praised.

So finally, I would like to say to Pastor Tullian that I am praying and interceding to God for you to fight the fight of faith, to not be discouraged or shaken by the sorrow and suffering you now probably face, and that God gives grace to the humble.  May you find the robe of humility and join all the saints who lift the name of Jesus for sinners like us!  As for your family, it will no doubt look and feel impossible to "win" or be made "right," again, but what is impossible with man is possible with God. 

Jesus replied, "What is impossible with man is possible with God." -Luke 18:27

You are already there, at the winner's circle.  I know it because I believe it.  I believe it because God said it.  For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.  That whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.  -John 3:16

Pastor Tullian, I love you with the love that is of God.  We fall because we are fallen, but we rise because He is risen.  I just can't emphasize this enough, that my hope in Jesus remains for you and for me.  

“Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now going to be made complete by the flesh?

Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.

for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Galatians 3:3, 11, 26

I'm certain that what God says is the truth, and it is the only truth that will be the light that leads us deeper into that epic love of God every time we think things are bad.  

Grace and love,

Jmegrey 

Difficult Decisions and Death

“accepting one another 

and forgiving one another 

if anyone has a complaint against another. 

Just as the Lord has forgiven you, 

so you must also forgive. 

Above all, put on love — the perfect bond of unity.

Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, 

as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. 

You serve the Lord Christ.”

Colossians 3:13-14, 23-24 

Accepting someone as they are is hard as ...never mind.  You get the point. 

Our love is very conditional with one another.  We don't accept thieves, back stabbers, offenders, rampant liars, or judgmental bigots very easily into our hearts of love.  They remain kept as far away as possible from the tender inner places of our vulnerable selves.  Most of the time, we cannot accept them at all, because accepting them into the hearts of our sacred homes would be risky.  They appear to be holding knives and bags ready to ransack the place and leave us devastated, robbed of precious things like peace and comfort, and ultimately just leave us with nothing much to call a home any longer.  So we keep those meddlers out and only open the door of our hearts to peaceable kindred folk who have manners and maybe even come bearing gifts.  Those kinds of people we welcome, but of course at the first sign of trouble, say a careless spill on our expensive rug which is not compensated for, we politely make a mental note never to invite them over again.  They become unaccepted into our heart's central home, because who knows...such a careless person, albeit accidentally, might cause our home more trouble than good, and that would not be good.  The upkeep of our hearts is of utmost importance, because there is where we find our existence and status.  Take away one or the other and we are as good as dead.  

So for God to speak and say that we are to accept one another, and yet doesn't mention conditions, He implies that none are mentioned for a reason.  Because God never forgets to mention something.  If no conditions are given then it is more fitting to say that no conditions exist.  

Forgive.  This, too, is quite distant from our tangible reach.  To forgive means that there was first an offense.  Here's one definition of the word, offense: the act of attacking.  

Hmm so what does it mean to forgive someone who has attacked us?  That's highly unlikely to happen when we think of a woman being attacked by another woman who just walked in on her sleeping with that woman's husband.  In this scenario both women were attacked or offended by the other.  One is more blatantly physically and the other is emotionally.  Both are equally painful, and both eventually intertwine because the body and mind are never really separated.  So here God would be saying to forgive, and our two ladies would probably look dumbfounded at the mere notion of forgiveness. But regardless of how they take it, it is what God says to do.  So another conclusion, if we persist on God being God, is to say that forgiveness is impossible to organically feel and desire to do, but nevertheless it is what we must do.  The bible is saying that we must do what is impossible to do.  Pretty much. 

Hmm.  We are told to do what is impossible to do.  Accept.  Forgive.  So where does that leave me? 

Well, it feels like I'm stuck between bad and bad.  Crap on the left and crap on the right, in fact I'm just in a small windowless container of crap. 

Really. 

Does that suck?  Um yes.  But the truth that that sucks does not negate the truth that that's the case.  Just because I hate the way something is doesn't mean that it is always going to change.  If I hate the rain, will it now never rain?  No.  I'll just hate the rain, and when it rains then something I hate will be happening.  

So back to impossible things that I am supposed to do according to God. 

Basically, I can't do these things.  I can't accept untrustworthy people into my heart, I can't forgive painful attackers that just want to cause me pain, and the whole notion to put on love is like crazy talk.  Basically it's not only saying to accept and forgive, but to like them too!  Like the two ladies are to forgive and accept one another and then to hug and feel like they can't live without one another.  That is so weird.

Yet it's in the Gospel.  It's God's words, and for those who believe that God is good, then His words mean wisdom for us to understand.  Otherwise you end up like the analogy of someone not liking rain on a rainy day.  It sucks.  Yes it does suck when you hate rain and it rains.  But is there another way to live?

How can we take in God's Word and still survive? 

The only answer I can see that continues to make God good and me survive is this:

To not fear death and to desire the river rushing floods of highest love as mine.

In other words, to have our heart homes beat up is good, and to have pain and struggle is good.  That means what I think is good is not good and what I think is bad is not bad.  

When I'm caught in the middle of making a big or little decision, and the atmosphere of it all is "which one is right and which one is wrong" I need to remind myself of the above resolve of God's truth.  That every decision I make is not between right and wrong.  But between two GOODS.  There is a right or a right.  

Because we make decisions based on our desire to go on living.  We want to live and we don't want to die or have our heart homes demolished.  We don't want our physical bodies or our minds to be in pain.  

We might not like the bible to show us that this way of living is a life constantly in fear of death, or as constantly resisting God's wisdom and love, but just because we don't like it doesn't mean that it's not true.  

Accept and forgive, and put on love.  But that would be to face Death!  Yes, and we can face death when we look to our Lord Jesus who first faced Death and slapped him in the face and told us to do the same.  Jesus rose again and sat next to God the Father and prepared for us a place where He now is.  To be seated in fullest love, highest glory, and most brilliant joy.  

Through Jesus we enter into the impossible confidently.  He first defeated death, and now what was once impossible became possible. We no longer have to live in that sphere of being afraid to have our heart homes demolished, because what if it was our very hearts that were leaking poison undetected by us?  What if all along, Death wanted us to hold our hearts and bodies and minds so dearly because that is precisely how we will be swallowed by Death?  That would certainly change things.  

As for decisions, I bring this up because today I had to make a choice between two conflicting commitments and it was bothering me so much. I spent 4 hours debating what to do with essentially 30 minutes (the time difference that would go from one thing as opposed to the other choice).  I did this because I wanted to do the right thing.  I wanted to ask God what I should do.  And what I found at the end of that time was a reminder that for me there is no longer right and wrong.  Because the moment I believed in Jesus is the moment everything I did became right and all the promises I wanted became "yes" in Him.  So it is not about right and wrong decisions but about walking in God's will. 

Which I am, and everyone is, because God's will is not contingent to happen on our ability.  It happens because He wills it first.  My position is thankfulness to be in His will because it is good news for me!  It might not be good news for the person who doesn't know God, making it hard to enjoy what God says to do (like accept and forgive) not to mention be cut off from Him forever!  But for us who believe, we are no longer fighting death and sin, but we are being transformed day by day, choice by choice, all in line with what God ordained for us beforehand so that we walk in it.  When I make a choice between this or that, I must remember that I am deciding between a right and a right not between a right and wrong.  I use what God gives me, since according to 2 Peter 1:3 I have already been given what I need to live in God's will, meaning I have a mind to think, people to ask, and lungs to pray, and so forth.  And I strive not against a right and a wrong, but I strive (cuz it is a struggle) to be placed back under God's real grace which began the day I believed.  To stand under the waterfall of grace and His rain to my desert soul and know that what I end up doing was the way I was intended to go.  

Hehe

Jmegrey 

The struggle to love || the struggle to death

The way Jesus talks about heaven and the way the bible glorifies eternity with God is oftentimes, when I try to get specific about the details, very foggy. 

"The natural appeal of this authoritative imagery is to me, at first, very small. At first sight it chills, rather than awakes, my desire."

-C.S. Lewis

And thank God for other passages that remind me of the promise of the gospel: 

The Promise to Abraham and all His descendants (which are descendants by faith and not the flesh) in Genesis 15.  Where the animals were cut in half--symbolizing what would happen to the one who made the covenant if they did not comply with its conditions.  Then God walked through the cut pieces which declared to Abraham that "If I fail you in loving you I'll be like these cut animals."  Then as we would all expect, Abraham was to walk through, but to his and our surprise he didn't walk through, but God closed the covenant, which meant one thing:  "If you fail in loving me, I'll be like these cut up animals as is a must for breaking this covenant."  Meaning that Abraham and we reap the promises unconditionally because by the conditions in the covenant, we all failed to love God and Jesus was cut up for us so that we received the unconditional love of God since Jesus met the requirements of when it was broken.  He met it, and now we get to enjoy the covenant blessings because of the one condition that Jesus fulfilled.  

So when I consider the glory of heaven and how little it really resonates with me, in that it is not yet enough to to motivate me to give up my lesser glories, I feel first ashamed, but humbled to know that my failure to love God wholeheartedly was known and Jesus met the conditions of that failure by being cut up and put to death, so that having finished the punishment I now have the freedom to rest in God's unconditional love for me.  The gospel relaxes my fears that threaten to say that the glory of heaven will never be understood by me, or to be more specific that I will never get to enjoy the deep love of God that makes everything else dull.  Because it is now not God's love that I am chasing, since it comes without any conditions on my part, but my faith in Jesus again and again to bring me there.  I am essentially learning about Jesus everyday, until I get really comfortable with the One who was cut up for me.  Until I feel confident enough in His love for me that what I gave Him, the burden of my sins, does not change his love for me.  As of now, to give anyone a burden, such as borrowing 2,000 dollars without ever paying it back, might not exactly make me feel confident that the person I borrowed it from is truly fond of me.  Or that yelling at my friend (giving them the burden of my anger and deeply hidden insecurities) will make me feel like they will now return the burden with kisses and gifts.  It sounds absurd!  It sounds....unreal, and to us who have not experienced such a kind of unconditional love it will remain outside of our comfortable bank of what we feel is ours.  It will be something new.  Foreign.  

C.S. Lewis puts it this way, 

"If it (heaven's glory) has more to give me, I expect it to be less immediately attractive than “my own stuff.” Sophocles at first seems dull and cold to the boy who has only reached Shelley. If our religion is something objective (meaning it has a fixed meaning that is the same for everyone), then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."

So I thought about this excerpt from Lewis's book "the weight of glory," and it got me thinking about why it is so hard to want God more than I want other things.  

Everyone knows that when you look at a subject, algebra, calculus, Spanish, or any new subject that you have never learned, it is uncomfortable and affronting to you because it reveals a weakness in you.  Try it.  Just open up a textbook on molecular biology, and then write out what it all means.  The task will feel very NOT FUN.  UNLESS you actually know and enjoy molecular biology very much.  (Contrast this experiment with sitting in front of a meal you were craving like a chipotle burrito bowl, and the task is to eat it.  You find this instant very enjoyable and fun, because YOU CAN eat it and it's easy to eat it, and in fact it's enjoyable because you have a mouth and teeth and a stomach.  You also probably have eaten this before and remember by experience how good it is.  The point is, we enjoy what we can do and what we have confidence to fully master by experience.  We enjoy what's easy for us to do more than what is hard for us to do, but we all know that things do not come easy and that it is a part of our enjoyment to struggle and feel the badge of earning our way to making the task easier for us to enjoy.  

You don't like to feel unable or failing in a subject and this means that you will either strive to learn it or strive to cope with the fact that you will never learn it.  We strive either way.  We struggle either way.  We bear a yoke of burden either way.  

Strive to practice the new material because you want to be able to feel like you've conquered it and can even, by experience, begin to enjoy it since it comes more and more easily to you.  As it becomes easier you are more free to set your attention on other benefits that it has to offer such as mastering the language and grammar of Spanish might surprise you with a greater job opportunity for dual speakers, or with a very unexpected new friendship with a Spanish speaking person who cooks up the best Mexican food you've ever had!  But of course it all began with your struggle with Spanish class.  On the flip side, let's say you decided that Spanish, making you feel pathetic to its superior and unattainable reach of it, you struggled to cope with the bad grade.  You got angry, because Spanish made you feel dumb, and consequently you wouldn't stand for that and so rather than struggling to learn Spanish you turned Spanish into a worthless subject.  Then what?  Aside from a terrible grade, which may impact your overall GPA and affect the college you got into, the job opportunities, and the kinds of friends you later made...would all in effect be the result of the struggle that began in Spanish class.  Of course we don't like to think about such far off "maybe's" but the point is that learning new things will always at first appear less attractive to us because we don't know it yet.  BUT REMEMBER THE STRUGGLE IS NEVER GONE, but different.  So in the case of getting God or understanding the depth of His love for us, initially we will find that it affronts us because of the very fact that we don't fully know it yet...it does not resonate with us, and so it does not come easily for us to feel like we can enjoy it and all of its benefits.  So then we who walk by faith strive to be In Relationship with Jesus, or we strive to make such a relationship not worth while.  Both have a different struggle and both have a different result. 

"The gospel will first chill your desires before it awakens them." -Lewis

Now we have the Word of God as a promise that what we see as chilling and affronting to us, just as Spanish or calculus is to the upcoming freshman, or perhaps even more to the exchange student from Korea, it is meant to be so, because we do not have it down yet, it is not ours confidently and easily.  If you had God and His gospel down, then it wouldn't scare you or make you feel incapable.  If you believed He truly loved you, and it came easily and confidently, then you would enjoy doing what He asked you to do.  (Isn't it easy to do things for people we deeply love?).  But as we are getting God, the process is new and different to what we know, and God gives us grace to every so now and again feel the pulse of our desire for the meaning of life beyond our meager 95 years on earth.  That pulse for heaven and greatest love.  

Of course none of us here can say that they have arrived at the experience of enjoying the perfect glory of heaven, as the student arrives at mastering Spanish and speaking it fluently with his newfound friend or at his job site, which make him all the more immersed in his confidence that he indeed now enjoys speaking Spanish.  So what is our motivation to help us essentially stay at our "desks of learning" and be in that place of "struggle for God's love?"  

Of course nothing more than that we are promised from long ago, when God Himself walked through the split animals and then by Jesus who met the conditions of the covenant to enjoy knowing God, the Creator and Genius communicator and most genuine lover, and painter of the pink and blue hues in the sky.  The One who gives our eyes rest and our bodies good food to taste and feel "that is sooooo good!"  The One who every so now and again urges us to keep learning and striving after Him by a song that opens some very deep chamber in the hollows of our chest and weep for the beauty of it that is unexplainable and intangible...the way heaven is.  We strive for what is beyond our present ability to fully enjoy Him by faith, but also by grace in those moments of tasting His love like appetizers that grow our anticipation and desire for the immersion in heaven, the feast.  Otherwise we strive to be content with what we have here alone, the things that we all know lose existence after death.  

Of course experience alone already testifies that this kind of striving to be content with what we have is never actually attained.  We are not satisfied with what we have on earth, but not until we are on our death bed will we finally most come to terms with the fact that what we had or ever had in this life was not enough, because at death it all comes to mean absolutely nothing.  

Right now, you may not have experienced that...being on your death bed, and so it doesn't even phase you to think of the truth that everything you now want will amount to nothing. But others have gone and died before us, everyday people are dying, and we can observe what their death has consistently meant for all of them...death means that all their lives no longer matter because it's gone forever.  By the words "no longer matter" I mean that they don't cling to anything on earth, since they are no longer alive to need them.  

We don't like to think about death because death scares us.  It means we lose everything: our family, our mornings, our playing, our dancing or being in a sports team, death takes everything away from us.  

Deep breath.  I have to see this, to look at Death. 

So then, I come to a brief close of what I mean by two struggles and two results.  

We have Death or we have Life.  

But of course there is a mystery to both, meaning that perhaps after death all of us will completely vanish or turn into other spirits that recycle into new bodies.  Maybe.  And you might want to bank your soul on that "maybe" because it's easier or more compatible with your present disposition.  I mean, you will have your reasons for why you would believe that, as I have my reasons for believing in Jesus even if I'm not completely certain that heaven will be what I think it will be.  It's mysterious until it's experienced.  And I will not experience it until I get there after death.  

So by my reasons and motivations I will live either to struggle for knowing Jesus as my way to heaven or struggle against Jesus as the way to heaven.  Both ways I struggle, but I know more about life through Jesus because of the bible and by my life's experiences.  I know only of death by the funerals I've been to.  

Should I live by my experiences of living by faith or by the same outcome of every funeral? 

Do I struggle in both, yes!  Do I feel a great mystery by both? Yes!  

However, Jesus gives us a glimpse of Life, while Death gives us a glimpse of, well, death.  

So what am I saying now?  I'm saying that we live by faith in Jesus who is our glory and life.  Jesus reminds us that God loves us unconditionally because of the conditions met by Jesus.  We struggle to believe in Jesus.  The struggle is relational.  And that's why experiences in loving others on earth bring us closer to believing in our relationship with Jesus. 

Otherwise we struggle to prove Jesus wrong.  We struggle to prove death to be better.  Isn't that crazy?  We struggle to bank our souls on so many "maybes," and, yes, following Jesus is also a "maybe" but His is built on the bible that has outlasted thousands of years.  His "maybe" is proven by the lives of all the saints, and we are becoming those testimonies to the world ourselves.  A testimony that God is the greatest Love of all.  

The other "maybe's" of Death somehow being better than Jesus, are many.  And some might desire to believe them, but when we think about why we would choose something (Buddhism, Muslim, Taoism, or atheism, etc) outside of Jesus alone, the thoughts will reveal something deeper.  The core of our reasons will either be love or fear.  

I want love.  

Let the struggle for life and love happen is it may.

We are recipients of the promise made long ago by God to Abraham and all of his descendants by faith.  The promise that He will love us unconditionally! 

Jmegrey